A 40-year-old father has become the first person in the UK to receive a total artificial heart that will enable him to go home.
Matthew Green had been critically ill, suffering from end-stage failure of both chambers of his heart. This meant his organ struggled to pump blood around his body and left him on the brink of death.
But today he was preparing to return home after undergoing the ground-breaking surgery at Papworth Hospital, near Cambridge.
The operation: Mr Green was fitted with an artificial heart that will serve the role of both ventricles and heart valves
Doctors at the hospital have previously implanted a total artificial heart but this is the first time a patient has been well enough to leave hospital and go home.
The operation - which has also been completed successfully in the United States and parts of Europe - could help cut transplant waiting times in the future.
Mr Green said he was looking forward to returning to his home in London with his son Dylan, five, and wife Gill.
He said: 'Two years ago I was cycling nine miles to work and nine miles back every day but by the time I was admitted to hospital I was struggling to walk even a few yards.
HEART OF THE MATTER
A total artificial replacement for the human heart has been one of the holy grails of modern medicine.
Dr Denton Cooley implanted the first experimental device in Haskell Carp at St Luke's Hospital in Houston in 1969.
Mr Carp survived for three days on the device but died shortly after the implant was replaced with a human heart.
Throughout the 1970s Dr Willem Kolff tested artificial hearts on calves.
In 1982 he implanted the Jarvik 7artificial heart into a dentist called Barney Clark. He survived for 112 days but suffered serious side effects and died from complications.
The longest survivor was William Schroeder, who was supported by the Jarvik-7 for 620 days.
By 1990 the Jarvik had been used in 198 patients when production stopped as the device no longer met FDA requirements.
Then in 2001 the first completely self-contained total artificial heart was implanted in Robert Tools at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville.
This AbioCor heart was developed by Abiomed in the U.S and used by end-stage heart failure patients.
In 2008, Charles Okeke was implanted with the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart. He became the first patient to leave hospital with an artificial heart in May 2010.
Since then the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart has been used in more than 900 implants in 65 hospitals across the world.
A 10-year study of the device found 75 per cent of patients were out of bed within a week of receiving it.
Two weeks after implant, 60% of all patients were walking more than 100ft and liver function had returned completely to normal, with kidney function not far behind.
Papworth is the 66th hospital in the world and the first hospital in the UK to be allowed to use the SynCardia artificial heart.
'I am really excited about going home and just being able to do the everyday things that I haven't been able to do for such a long time such as playing in the garden with my son and cooking a meal for my family.
'I want to thank all the wonderful staff at Papworth Hospital who have been looking after me and who have made it possible for me to return home to my family.'
In the long term he hopes to return to his job as a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company.
He said: 'My movement will still be limited but at least I can return home to be with my family. That means the world to me.'
During a six-hour operation last month, surgeons replaced Mr Green's damaged heart with the device which will serve the role of both ventricles and heart valves.
It provides a blood flow of up to 9.5 litres, eliminating the symptoms and effects of severe heart failure.
The Syncardia total artificial heart is powered by a 'freedom portable driver', worn like a backpack or shoulder bag.
The transplant team at Papworth, led by Steven Tsui, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon and director of the transplant service, underwent training in Paris and was assisted by Latif Arusoglu, an expert total artificial heart surgeon from Bad Oeynhausen, Germany.
Mr Green suffered from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathia, a heart muscle disease which results in arrhythmia, heart failure and sudden death.
Mr Tsui said: 'At any point in time there may be as many as 30 people waiting for a heart transplant on our waiting list at Papworth, with one third waiting over a year.
'Matthew's condition was deteriorating rapidly and we discussed with him the possibility of receiving this device, because without it he may not have survived the wait until a suitable donor heart could be found for him.
'The operation went extremely well and Matthew has made an excellent recovery.
'I expect him to go home very soon, being able to do a lot more than before the operation with a vastly improved quality of life, until we can find a suitable donor heart for him to have a heart transplant.'
The Papworth Hospital is currently the only centre in the UK that is allowed to implant the Syncardia device.
UK first: The transplant team at Papworth Hospital implanted the revolutionary device in a six-hour operation last month
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: 'For some patients with severe heart failure transplantation is their only hope of long-term survival, but donor hearts are not always available.
'Previous versions of the mechanical heart have supported only the left side of the heart - the side that does most of the work - but the total mechanical heart replaces both sides and so can be used for anyone with severe heart failure.
'Patients with mechanical hearts must remain permanently linked to a power supply via tubes that pass through the skin, which is a potential source of infection.
'With this artificial heart, the power supply is small enough to fit in a shoulder bag so patients can walk around and go home.' dailymail.co.uk
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